00:00.00 alifeinruins And welcome back to episode 1 61 of a life runs podcast. We're continuing to talk about the recent burials or suggested burials at na leady in the de na lead den not day a lead chamber. Do you know leady. 00:12.50 captain sad DD na leady I don't know. 00:15.74 David Howe Where. 00:22.24 captain sad Where's that at David. 00:23.82 alifeinruins Ah, yeah, didn't know let he didn't let he die the let it fuck. 00:25.20 captain sad What part of what part of what would you call that area. 00:28.45 David Howe Oh South Africa Cradle of Silver area. Oh well. 00:33.84 alifeinruins I Don't think it showed up. Okay, we'll try all the absolutely. 00:37.30 captain sad Ah, it did a little bit. We're trying all the new things here on the on the podcast. Um, do we have anything to add about to that the leady specific or do you want to. 00:42.79 David Howe Has from chappee show with the yeah. 00:50.70 alifeinruins I We we probably should talk about the um individual burials themselves or why they think they're burials and it's. 00:51.26 David Howe It'll It'll come back up. 00:55.62 David Howe Well, we could also talk about the fact that there's symbolic culture in there too. That's pretty big. 01:02.61 alifeinruins Yeah, let's let's hit the symbolic culture after what makes them burials and not just random like like ah there wasn't some sort of Geo Logical event that just covered up a bunch of dead Meleians that for them. Wow. 01:14.51 David Howe Right. 01:14.57 captain sad Yeah. 01:20.48 alifeinruins Like pulling this up, they talk about how the is it the spacing of them. It's like it's the way that they're in the ground suggests that they're consistent with intentional burials. 01:30.48 David Howe The homin is abstract shows that Hominins dug holes that disrupted the subsurface stratigraphy and intered the remains. So it's not saying burial. It's just saying that they they disrupted this but it's very worded. 01:32.47 captain sad Wolf. 01:41.58 captain sad They interred them so they they? Yeah so I mean the the important things that they the the sediment and stuff like that and the surrounding areas suggest that there there is internment. There is stuff being buried apart from that. So. Um, if an individual just died there. You would expect zero disturbance. Um, in terms of the sediments etc but you can in this in this case have a defined additional layer or changes between previous layers. That shows that there was digging happening and mixing as part of this so that's kind of I think that's their big thing. Um I Do think there is some sort of morphology thing and way they are put in there that is also mentioned. 02:31.82 David Howe Ah, not in sure what you're referencing. But I believe you. 02:35.36 captain sad Don't know you know? Yeah no I think it's mostly just looking at the the soil sttigraphy and stuff like that which is important because I mean um, that's that's how we define burials and um features. Etc is that what you're reading of this is Carlton. 02:55.57 alifeinruins Yeah I mean I I buy it I mean. 03:00.75 David Howe Yeah, and they're not just it. They're It's clearly more than just laid there. Yeah, um. 03:04.24 alifeinruins Yeah, which would suggest like the earliest known form of treatment of the dead in Genus homo. 03:14.80 David Howe Yeah now I think I talk about this or I'm and I know talk about this in my lecture but at the end let's talk about like because like it's a significant leap in time when we start burying ourselves but then also I would argue when you start burying dogs because you're extending that. Idea of humanity onto another like creature. But what before I like go into that I was saying like you gotta bury people like when they're dead you get sad so you gotta bury people but you gotta bury them six feet deep cause hyena as a dug em up and then are like wolves or whatever. And then after that that's going to become like a practice and then around that's going to become a ritual and then it's a habit thing that you make and that's going to lead to like an afterlife type thing. So it's pretty complicated at least that's my idea of how that evolution goes in like the human brain. But this just shows that it was going on. Long before that and maybe they just never figured out to bury them six feet deep until neanderthals kind of thing or like are humans you know or deep enough. 04:12.56 captain sad Are. 04:19.90 captain sad Yeah. 04:20.45 alifeinruins Yeah, but the six feet burial is very specific to certain cultures too. Yeah because there's also like sky burials practiced across the world and like we would never be able to tell. 04:26.22 David Howe Sure I guess not exactly six feet but you know what I mean like they they buried him buried him. Yeah. 04:36.75 David Howe Exactly So they could be doing that. 04:39.85 alifeinruins You know? Yeah, there's a bunch of different forms like in terms of like interring people in the ground archeologists will find them now now if there's a different sort of like ritualistic treatment of the dead that won't be identifiable. Archeologist is absolutely possible. 04:57.48 captain sad Yeah, like we could have we could be seeing it earlier in like Australpiss and stuff like that. Um, but this is just the perfect storm where these these things are buried in a cave. Um I also think it's interesting David what you're talking about like so you have these these patterns that become ritual become habits. And then there's like the diffusion of that too which I think is super interesting because like yeah, so like any can start from 1 place or it can be discovered independently or compared and changed as cultures interact humans interact. It's kind of I think that's a really interesting idea and you wonder that. 05:16.42 David Howe Right? Because it's all going to culturally differ. Yeah. 05:29.12 David Howe And. 05:34.62 captain sad Why you don't see it in like home Homo Erectus right? or. 05:38.60 David Howe Yeah, and I would I would argue home erectus was just so mobile getting out of Africa all the way to almost Australia that they just didn't have time for that like kind of like but yeah. 05:48.70 captain sad Or they do something like sky burials or something like that yaks I mean do like the amount of time it takes to actually actually bury someone and the investment and that might be too difficult. 05:58.91 David Howe Yeah, either just drop dead where they are piss on them and leave. 06:05.11 captain sad I Don't think they pissed on him I don't think there's any. 06:07.89 David Howe In all of the 2000000 years of home erectus being around one pissed on a dead body. That's an archeological fact. Maybe it got stung by a jellyfish. 06:25.59 captain sad Um, well and it is interesting that um I still think I mean so before this our our best proof of human burial or Homo Sapien burial is neanderthals which is. 06:37.40 David Howe Yeah. 06:40.74 captain sad Really interesting. Um, maybe they aren't moving as far as Homo erectus and spreading and etc and have time and are in caves and have the ability to do that. But it's what what kind of fuels that and where does that begin from is a kind of interesting topic. 06:58.11 David Howe Yeah, um, and then it could also be like only certain individuals were awarded that right kind of thing or kind of like a pyramid like only Kufu or tooten come and can get a pyramid other people just get thrown in the ditch. 07:12.44 alifeinruins They yeah I mean the concept of neanderthal's bearing. Their dead has been around since 198 very much so they discovered a fairly complete neanderthal skeleton near la chapel ox saints. 07:12.61 captain sad Yeah now. 07:20.86 David Howe It's controversial. 07:31.80 alifeinruins And France thank you David a chappe al song. Um, and so even then it was like laid in a beatal position safely covered up from the elements they suggest but because it was done a 9 to 8 critics and skeptics have said they've done it sloppily. 07:34.60 David Howe Let's your pillow song. 07:48.64 alifeinruins The argument continues to this day but the fact but it was it was a burning question 198 and remember they found the first homo neanderthal sapien theanderth lesson skeleton and 1856 in the under valley. So like just over fifty years after the first one was found. They're like oh they were burying their dead that was ah that was a big deal. 08:03.59 David Howe Yeah. 08:07.60 alifeinruins Um, but there have been other neanderthal burials. 08:07.56 captain sad Um. 08:12.70 captain sad And that and that you could see you could trace that questioning and um about that to like the initial thoughts about neanderthals as big Dumb brutes and not being able to associate them with sort of complex culture and and things like that. So I I do think we have like um and as we'll kind of talk about. 08:23.87 David Howe Yeah. 08:30.13 captain sad Have some better evidence now that that suggests that they are bearing it so la shopel all science was the first one but the the most intense and kind of ah extensive burials yeah is at shanaar cave which is in Iraq I believe. 08:41.40 David Howe Heavy. 08:47.62 alifeinruins So yeah. 08:49.15 captain sad Just North Northeast Northeast of Mosul. 08:51.70 David Howe Cradle the motherfu civilization. Ah yeah, and that one stefan our friend that Carlton has on speed dial is um I hope just don't tell him that he was on the episode. Ah. 08:52.85 alifeinruins Yeah, so. 09:08.36 David Howe Um, he did a video on this and like if you want to look at the video you can get it a tori drew a representation of this individual his eye was bashed in dude like he like the orbit was just destroyed. He was missing an arm and he had some other like ailments and like we were saying in the interim that like he was just Steve the pirate. Probably had a peg leg eye patch but also his teeth were like messed up I think so he was being cared for and fed because he was likely blind in that eye at least maybe both? Um, okay. 09:37.26 captain sad Yeah, and that's sha. Our one is the individual we're talking about and there's 5 others. Um that are associated with this 6 others maybe so but it is interesting. Yeah, it's to this severe signs of deformity on him worn teeth. 09:38.91 alifeinruins Yeah. 09:46.41 alifeinruins And. 09:55.23 captain sad Like this dude's walking around with like a fucked up limp like it's kind of wild. 09:58.69 David Howe Yeah, like you he was. 10:00.86 alifeinruins Yeah, so there's several neanderthal ah burials these are intentional burials senodar was discovered in 1960 um the most famous one of these burials was what's called shennadar 4 and that has been. 10:14.97 David Howe The flower or. 10:16.88 alifeinruins Nicknamed the flower burial and the reason why that was is through soil samples taken from the surrounding area of that individual. Um, revealed pockets of pollen um and the person Ralph Dr Ralph Seleki leader of the team and an anthropologist at Columbia University he saw that this evidence of pollen was like they put flowers around the burial and that's where that has come from and that is also hotly debated debated and and I just learned this today because when we're talking about it in the interim David's like well I know a professor that doesn't agree with that so we started looking into it turns out. Um, basically the the pollen surrounding shenanarf four was shown to have been transported by burrowing rodents. It was um krotovina yeah, the rodents were moving the pollen around. So the. 11:02.54 David Howe A. 11:12.10 alifeinruins It's that that idea the flower burial has has allegedly collapsed. Um, but and also there you know at um rock rockafet cave at Mount Carmel in Israel that has a um that was actually they were placed in a um, flower lined grave. Um. And does double burial and actually the individuals are separated One's eleven Thousand seven hundred and the other is thirteen thousand seven hundred I don't know if that's for both of them. But no. 11:39.47 David Howe And that's that's that's clearly in range of like totally probably normal at that time. Yeah, because the the one with the dog is 10000 years old 11:48.59 alifeinruins So and dogs have been around for 30000 years okay so but neanderthals have definitely been bearing. They're dead and the reason why this matters is we kind of talked about it's like this idea of identity. 11:57.56 David Howe Genetically 20 but I would say 30 Yeah. 12:08.55 alifeinruins Thinking about the afterlife and there's this really good explanation of if I can find the damn thing like why and analysis of Morre Rituals provides a richly textured medium for which like ethnographers and archeologists can examine like the crafting of social memory. Um, it's in a book that many people probably heard of social memory identity and death anthropological perspectives on more tre rituals edited by Meredith S Chessen um that came out in 2001 so there's probably more modern stuff out, but. Generally when you look at the dead you're looking at as David talked about like everyone else kind of come into grips with it but also goes into forms of identity like how you bur your dead matters for how you believe in the afterlife and your personhood. So it means a lot that homo leady is is potentially. 12:53.27 David Howe And. 13:01.95 alifeinruins Burying their dead or and turning they're dead in some way. 13:06.10 captain sad Yeah, and that kind of hints out the complexity of of of their culture or whatever it is because I think that's that's what we associate with kind of complex culture is this this burial practices et cetera. Um. 13:19.96 David Howe Um, yeah. 13:25.14 captain sad I'm gonna say. 13:26.21 David Howe Complex. 13:26.87 alifeinruins So by the way if you're listening to this and you're like Stefan. We're not going to tell stefan o I was on the podcast we rely on you to email him like hey I really like your guest appearance in episode one six to 1 of a life birth podcast if you do that and and b c see us. You'll get a sticker. 13:40.95 David Howe Um. 13:42.23 captain sad Yeah, did Carlton you find that thing you were looking for. Okay. 13:44.27 alifeinruins On that email. 13:49.88 alifeinruins What was I looking for? Yeah I have it? Oh yeah, I'll just read it. Um, from an archeological perspective mortuary practices represent the complex interplay of emotions, material culture and social memories of the mourners and the deceased in the past. Test by the material remains of their so these ceremonies namely grave goods skeletal remains and funery structures from ethnographic Accounts. We know that mortuary rituals provide a sensationuous Arena I got a fuck I can't read this. 14:21.94 David Howe Sensationish such sensation is are you fun Just a ah word I didn't know. 14:24.92 alifeinruins Sensuist sorry like I can't make the text bigger so'm like trying to read it like with my old man eyes provide a sensuous arena in which the debt are mourned social memories are created and reasserted social bonds are renewed forged or broken and individuals make claims for individual identities and group memberships. Both ethnographic and archeological studies clearly illustrate the intensely complex in our play between people's identities, emotions experiences and desires the multiple webs of social structures and the use of material culture in primary and secondary and mortuary practices so that is from social memory identity and death and introduction by Meredith S chesen university of no notre dame that's 2001 chose day shesh one chicken. 15:03.65 David Howe Chosen in it. 15:09.50 captain sad I thought you were talking about some like sash 1 chicken or something. It's like what sort of yeah sort of um. 15:18.20 alifeinruins Because that's like uniquely human I mean fundamentally when we talk about buring the dad. We all we all regardless of where we're at right now if you're a lone cosic listener. You know how we bury The dead is a very personal but group bonding experience and we all know. 15:18.23 captain sad Yeah, it. 15:36.52 alifeinruins What goes on with the funeral and the practice. Yeah like I know like I mean for me I know what to expect from like when one of my pawnee relative dies I know what needs to happen for a pawe funeral versus like someone on my mom's side or by non-indigenous friends. 15:40.54 David Howe Depending for your culture. Yeah. 15:48.92 David Howe Right. 15:52.76 alifeinruins Like those are 2 different practices in how we engage. 15:55.92 David Howe The like Jewish side of my family funerals. You always put a rock on the grave and you everyone takes a turn throwing dirt on it. Um, and then there's like ah a kish is what it's called. It's like the prayer that a Rabbi reads I've actually only been to Jewish Funerals I Don't think I've been to now. 16:13.37 captain sad Is that is Shiva involved in that too or what is what's a were you sitting hardship shiva. 16:13.57 David Howe But to my grandpas he was christian doesn't matter we you can sit. Oh yeah I guess the practice is sitting Shiva it's like you you sit with the body for three days um I don't know if it's to make sure originally if hyenas don't need it I don't know. Ah there's probably a rabbinical purpose for it that I never went to hebrew school but our family just being New York Seinfeld Jews just instead of sitting Shiva went to a diner. We all hung out together. Yeah, ah, but yeah, no no shiva um. 16:31.38 captain sad Um. 16:41.60 alifeinruins New York seinfeld jews 16:48.53 captain sad That. 16:50.23 David Howe But that's definitely a thing and that's a old as tradition too like a judaism's old. Um. 16:56.69 captain sad I think that it's interesting I've been to like catholic ah funerals I've been to kind of more Anglican Presbyterian etc and there is like these this kind of spectrum of stuff that is done in certain practices. Kind of like the new age version where we just like get drunk and hang out with your friends and talk shit about? Yeah yeah, just have a good time I think that's ah, interesting. But that thus I was super shocked when I was a young. 17:18.14 David Howe The Irish way. No. 17:29.18 captain sad To go to a catholic funeral and have the the body the open casket sort of thing was like shocking to me as like six year old or 7 year old yeah Yeah it's it's freaky but no good. 17:37.58 David Howe Yeah I never did an open casket thing. Ah I guess oh sorry you go my grandfather's funeral. Um, my dad's dad. He was a mason. So like all of like the mason like the masonic lodge of like New York was there. Um I don't know if it was all of the state of New York or just thought where he was but they have their own funeralary practices that I was that was the funeral I saw and I was like oh damn my grandpa was like legit. But. 18:10.35 alifeinruins Yeah, my my my my native grandfather had a masonic aspect to his it was bonkers like his funeral was like pawny masonic and then also had a little bit of Southern Baptist into it. 18:13.80 David Howe My Uncle's a mason too. 18:27.14 alifeinruins And there was also the veteran stuff there so there was there was a lot of different social groups at play going on. Yeah, there was like a lot of different like rituals now think about us today at the po like holy shit like yeah, there was a lot of different social context in which people had to do things we had someone standing on our guard. There was this 21 gun salute. Yeah, like there was a. 18:28.82 David Howe Lots of stuff. 18:31.92 captain sad Ooh that's wild. 18:36.37 David Howe Yeah. 18:43.47 David Howe Wow! sit. 18:46.67 alifeinruins There was a lot. Um I don't know if he was the first native american the masonic church or to the masonic and the masons. Yeah, well's because my grandmother was in the order of the row. So pretty sure that she got him in. 18:51.79 David Howe Order or whatever it's scottish right? is think is what my grandfather and my uncle were her are. 19:01.79 David Howe A. 19:05.20 alifeinruins Because the order of the roses is the female version. Anyways, we're totally off top but we'll get back to more mortuary practice in the archeological record right? after these messages. 19:06.83 David Howe Yeah. 19:14.47 David Howe Ah.